MetaRam aims to bump RAM capacity by 4x overnight

We’re not sure what whacky voodoo snakeoil these MetaRam people are peddling, but the company’s got some high profile behind it (like Intel, for one), is being led by former AMD CTO Fred Weber, has appears to have some potentially revolutionary RAM quadrupling technology. Claiming to have leapfrogged current RAM technology by 2-4 years, MetaRam uses a specialized “MetaSDRAM” chipset that effectively bonds and addresses four cheap 1Gb DRAM chips as one, tricking any machine’s memory controller into using it as a 4x capacity DIMM. Since a 1Gb chip is apparently far less expensive than a 2Gb chip, MetaRam devices can multiply capacity at prices far lower than their competition; the company claims it’ll be shipping in machines in the first quarter of this year, and Hynix has already announced their own 2-rank 8GB DDR2 RDIMMs for the second half.

Source: Engadget

HD DVD deathwatch: we’re making it official!ITS OVER PEOPLE!!

So far this battle’s been decided primarily by two factors: studio support and ubiquity of content. It’s clear Sony’s camp couldn’t even come close to trumping Toshiba in hardware price war that’s ensued over the past couple of years. But as it turns out, consumers that just spent thousands on a new HDTV weren’t too concerned with a couple hundred dollars between players, and despite whatever users price won HD DVD, the PS3 Blu-ray trojan kept the competition at bay. Meanwhile, most consumers were too smart and too cautious to buy early in a format war. Most have simply waited this thing out, and while Warner’s announcement to go exclusively Blu was obviously huge, it was only indicative of a trend — it didn’t set it.

If you look at the timeline, even before Warner announced its intentions to go Blu-ray exclusive HD DVD’s studio base was already shrunken from its heyday, leaving it with fewer titles both in number and sales. Warner was just another push in the direction things were already headed — the numbers already consistently showed Blu was ahead in media and install base, which has only become far more exaggerated in the last couple of months now that Blu amassed some 70% of studio-released titles.

But if you ask us, it’s the ubiquity of content that sealed the deal. It wasn’t until Blockbuster and later Netflix — two of the three most widely used disc rental businesses in the US — went Blu-ray exclusively that we knew HD DVD wasn’t long for this world.

So here’s the deal, Toshiba. As much as we hate putting any worthy technology on deathwatch, for the sake of the greater good we hope you guys just roll over and cut your losses so we can all move on. But if you really want off this deathwatch, you’re not only going to have to retain Paramount (which owns Dreamworks) and Universal, you also need to win at least a few back from Blu (Warner and Disney would be a great start), and get hardware in consumers’ hands, even if it means practically giving it away. It’s not going to be easy — hell, we think it’s actually pretty hopeless — but hey, that’s why you’re on deathwatch, innit?

P.S. -Special for this occasion, we’ve also brought our Blu-ray vs HD DVD: State of the Division charts up to date and added a few new tables

Wal-Mart to go Blu-Ray exclusive

And like a castle of playing cards HD DVD’s dreams and hopes continue to shatter as the days go by and more people/companies/studios go Blu. The latest to jump into the winning boat on which Sony is captain is Wal-Mart, big-time retailer and now Blu-ray supporter as by June, it has announced that it will only be offering DVDs and Blu-Ray discs (and hardware).

Wal-Mart’s move comes just days after Best Buy has announced that it will be ‘favoring’ Blu-Ray and advertise it as the better high-definition format but this time it’s as definitive as it can get. No more HD DVD in Wal-Mart for you! And another round goes to Blu-Ray.

Apple applies for trademark protection on gaming devices

We’re not gonna read too much into this just yet, but when everyone’s favorite fruit-flavored consumer electronics company files to protect its trademark as it relates to a wide range of gaming devices, well, we feel you’d want to know. The USPTO sleuths over at Trademork just gave us the heads up on this recently-filed application from Cupertino, which requests protection of the word “APPLE” for products that classify as “toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games.” And come to think of it, we did see Apple file for a videogame-related patent not too long ago, so who knows: perhaps the iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV will soon have even more friends among the company’s ever-expanding non-PC ecosystem. Then again, we’ve heard this rumor in one form or another countless times before, and right now pining for a resurrected Gizmondo is already giving us enough headaches.

Microsoft Windows XP SP3 Build 3300 RC2

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18 Wheels Of Steel: American Long Haul

Info:

North America’s open roads await! You ain’t working for the Man any more! You’re the owner of your own trucking business and you call the shots. Build your empire one rig at a time to dominate the roadways and outbid the competition. Can you handle the pressure? Your American Dream starts behind the wheel of your own big rig. 37 Trucks and 45+ types of cargo in game.

Minimum :
CPU: 1.4 GHz Pentium 4 or equivalent
RAM: 256 MB (for Vista, 1 GB highly recommended)
Video Card: OpenGL 1.3 compatible 64 MB AGP with hardware T&L
Hard Disk: 540 MB free space
Operating System: Windows 2000/XP/Vista with DirectX 9 or higher installed

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MacBook Air with SSD tested: performance boost nowhere to be found

We’ve definitely been curious about the difference sticking an SSD would make in the MacBook Air’s otherwise average performance and battery life, and it looks like the answer is a resounding “meh.” The crew at Ars Technica ran an SSD-equipped Air through a battery of tests, and found that while the increased random disk read / write speeds and slightly faster processor led to a minor overall speedup and less pinwheeling, the dramatically lower sequential read/ write speeds of the SSD made things essentially a wash. What’s worse, battery life — where the SSD should have shone — was decidedly mediocre. Ars was able to coax the SSD model in to lasting 29 minutes longer than the HDD version they tested, but on average the SSD-equipped MBA didn’t have the juice to last any longer than the HDD model, getting to about 2 hours and 31 minutes before petering out. All said, Ars says the extra $1300 for the SSD MacBook Air just isn’t worth it — but c’mon, you know that’s not stopping the people who are buying Airs in the first place.

Via Digg

Sony in the lead of Christmas TV sales

Sony Corp. won the fierce competition in the U.S. for TV sales during the holiday season as it beat out rivals offering lower-priced products and shipped the highest number of LCD TVs, which are becoming the dominant model. The Japanese electronics company had a slow start last year because it was late in offering a lineup of fully-digital LCD TVs, but it jumped four spots from the previous quarter to take a 12.8% share in the key October-December period, according to the latest data by Texas-based research firm DisplaySearch. This was the first time Sony took top share in North American LCD TV shipments.

The results, however, also showed the continued volatility in U.S. market share in the face of unrelenting competition. Electronics manufacturers have said that prices fell at a faster pace than they expected last year. Though they all reported increased sales of TVs, their quarterly earnings have suffered from a decline in profitability. Sharp Corp., which had the largest market share in the July-September quarter, fell to No. 4 with an 8.4% share, losing nearly 3 percentage points. Vizio Inc., a privately held Irvine, Calif. company that rose to the top spot in the second quarter, fell to third place with 10.7% share. Vizio, which outsources its production to Asia, has rapidly become a major TV player by selling its ultralow-priced televisions through retail chains like Costco Wholesale Corp. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co., the biggest producer of all types of TVs world-wide in terms of units, came in second.

Source:NY TIMES